At the conclusion of the band’s festival defining set at Meredith on Saturday night, Nick Cave told the seething mass of bodies in the Supernatural Amphitheatre: “That’s it for Grinderman. It’s over. See you in 10 years when we’ll be even older and uglier…”

Despite the split being widely reported across the globe, there has been silence from the Cave camp until now.

Speaking with FasterLouder’s Leigh Salter this morning Sclavunos spoke openly about the band’s future and their decision to re-focus on the Bad Seeds. Here are some of the highlights.

On Nick Cave’s sudden announcement at Meredith

“Well, we were all so devastated at losing all three of our nominations at the ARIA awards that we decided to quit altogether!”

“Was it a surprise to me that the tour was going to finish at Meredith? No, not at all. I knew months in advance that it was going to be our last show as Grinderman. Was there any looking back? No because the very next day I was going into the studio and start production on a new band’s [Teenage Mother’s] album.”

On the future of Grinderman and The Bad Seeds

“What happened at Meredith was more a bye-bye than an announcement. An announcement would be like a press release but who knows what will happen in five or 10 years time. My crystal ball is a bit low on batteries at the moment so I can’t predict what the future of Grinderman is – if there is a future.”

“We were finished with what we had to do as Grinderman and it’s time to move on, for now at least, and the next thing we are moving onto is The Bad Seeds. The way I see it is it’s kind of our prerogative as musicians to do whatever we think is the right thing at the time and also to change our minds as we see fit.”

“We may well get the itch to do another Grinderman album or, who knows, maybe something completely different. My musical life didn’t begin and end with The Bad Seeds or Grinderman, but Grinderman is an important component of my life, or rather was if it’s no more to be. But I think the music we made stands on its own merit.”

“I don’t think there should be mourning or rending of garments just yet, let’s wait a few years and see what happens. I’m sorry the whole thing’s a bit vague, but we took a long time between Grinderman album’s before, but we have kind of neglected Bad Seeds of late. It’s been about four years since we have done anything and I think it’s high time we made some beautiful music together, again.”

”Grinderman was one of my favourite bands to play with and yes I’m sad to see it go, but there’s always the prospect of the dreaded come back tour!”

On his beard

“Maybe instead of that I should keep growing it until Grinderman reform.But as it stands my facial hair is as unpredictable as the future of Grinderman.”

The full interview with Jim Sclavunos will be published on FasterLouder in coming weeks.

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